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Performance artist Darrell Thorne straddles multiple worlds, telling stories through transformation, reinvention and theatrical excess

- PHOTOGRAPHY: ANNIE SCHLECHTER US DIRECTOR: MICHAEL REYNOLDS WRITER: MICHAEL BULLOCK

Darrell Thorne appears like a glitch in the Matrix. Ornate and mirrored, headdress high, often on prosthetic stilts, body painted, horned, winged, caped, crowned (sometimes all at once), he doesn't enter so much as materialise. Not quite male or female, not entirely human or alien, he moves through space as something in-between. A guest from another realm, summoned by those who find the visible world insufficient.

Gala committees, fashion houses and private clients seek him out for something that floats beyond the boundaries of reality. Part character designer, part performance artist, pure spectacle, Thorne turns flesh into fantasy. When pop's grandes dames (Liza, Cher, Madonna) crave something otherworldly, they turn to his singular talents. 'Sometimes people want more than beauty,' he says. 'They want to feel mythic.'

Thorne grew up in small-town America and his family moved often (Alaska, Arkansas, Missouri). He was the youngest of five, raised under the strict codes of the Missionary Baptists. His grandfather was a preacher. His parents were devout. Television was forbidden. Hell was not a metaphor.

His escape wasn't rebellion, it was books. The first artist who mattered to him was Chris Van Allsburg, the writer and illustrator behind Jumanji and The Polar Express. From there he reached Narnia, Middle-earth, and beyond. Stories became his passport into wilder, more fantastical dimensions, but within his oppressive upbringing, there was a twist: Thorne's father, despite his religious fundamentalism, was also an amateur artist. The contradiction was striking. By day, he enforced a world view that left no room for the frivolous. At night, he built things. That paradox left an outsized mark on Thorne, giving him an early fluency in contradiction - an instinct for holding opposites without needing to choose between them.